The DaimlerChrysler ad consolidation was a major event in a year overflowing with big-ticket account action. The business, of course, tabbed at around $2.4 billion, was united this fall at BBDO and the newly reorganized PentaMark Worldwide division in Detroit, where the Chrysler account had previously been shared with FCB. Money played no small role in the move, and the automaker continues its cost-cutting measures to address some major business challenges, announcing at the end of January it would trim 26,000 jobs and slow production.

Hugh Broder, the man charged with marshalling those numerous yet precious dollars as director of broadcast production at PentaMark Worldwide, once walked into a Canadian Tire store during business hours with a production posse and walked out six days later with 39 commercials notched on his holster. He's a producer, in other words, who has an impressive history of making the most of commercial dollars. To his current, considerable task, Broder brings a philosophy that "there is always a way," and, despite the significant task of running the department, a mandate to keep doing hands-on production work.

Broder also brings over 25 years of agency experience which began post-high school in the mail room of Detroit shop Simons-Michelson and continued after college, when the theater grad joined Doner in Detroit. He was made head of production there in 1984 and he remained in the job until 1993. "Doner was a bit of an anomaly in Detroit, they were the largest agency in town without a car account," says Broder of the shop, which was known for its large regional retail accounts, like Eckerd Drugs and Canadian chains Canadian Tire and Zellers and for "cranking out a couple thousand commercials a year." The agency also handled national accounts like Chiquita bananas and Vlassic pickles and picked up international account British Petroleum Worldwide in the late '80s. "It was a great place to learn your craft as a producer," says Broder. "One year I produced 300 spots. I spent a lot of time in Toronto."

With the agency's retail-centric client base, budgetary pressures were a constant. "What we specialized in and what we created for these guys was the notion of pooling commercials," says Broder. "We would go to a location and produce maybe 20 commercials for three or four different accounts. I don't think anyone was doing it as inexpensively as we were, other than the people going to TV stations to do spots." The format was successful: "It got a lot of people on the air with good-looking stuff relative to budgets," says Broder, who was also involved in big-ticket spots, like the award-winning, Bill Irish-directed "Bike Story" for Canadian Tire, now part of the Canadian commercial canon. The producer joined the car culture in 1993 when Y&R recruited him to head up the Lincoln Mercury business in Detroit. He stayed at that post for five years. Then, after a short tour of duty as GM of post shop Postique, he moved to BBDO to front production on Dodge.